


Cold Comfort

by ArdeaJestin



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Dark Thoughts, Dubious Consent, F/M, Force Bond (Star Wars), Heavy Angst, Inappropriate Use of the Force, Kylo Ren is Not Nice, Mentions of Finn/Rose, Post TLJ
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-17
Updated: 2018-10-17
Packaged: 2019-08-03 15:59:15
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,754
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16329104
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArdeaJestin/pseuds/ArdeaJestin
Summary: When the gloriously hot water runs down her limbs, she feels her muscles relaxing for the first time in weeks. Her body is no longer a machine to be sparsely fed and rested, but an organism alive with sensation. Water always feels miraculous on the parched skin of a child of Jakku, and Rey closes her eyes, grinning, brimming with energy, herself again."I knew you couldn't keep away forever," a deep voice rumbles next to her ear.





	Cold Comfort

When she lays in the dark, keen with exhaustion and waiting for sleep to take her, Rey stares up at the ceiling and thinks about where she is in the universe.

 

She pictures herself from above, lying on the tiny metal cot, crammed between a wall and Rose’s bunk – in the Millenium Falcon – lost in a desolated plain, constantly beaten by howling winds – on a tiny black planet, like a piece of coal drifting aimlessly in the void – all the way on the very edge of everything that’s inhabited, the Outer Rim, the last stop before the precipice.

 

Knowing she’s so minuscule and unimportant, no more than a fleck of dust in the grand scheme of things, makes her feel as much despair as relief. Despair because each day that passes makes it more obvious that a ragtag band of Resistance fighters with a few weapons and one ship, stranded on Lah’mu, will never amount to anything – they’re barely able to survive, how are they supposed to fight against an all-powerful machinery of domination? Relief because that makes it all right to give up.

 

Rey never envisioned the universe as cold. Back on Jakku, the days were so bright, so white with searing heat, and she was so starved for exploring the galaxy, she couldn’t imagine it as anything else than a beautiful, dark velvet expanse, sparkling with life and possibilities. But never cold – never merciless and empty and unfeeling. The universe doesn’t care if she fails, if the Resistance is wiped out, or if any of them die. What difference will it make in the end?

 

She can sense this despondency is slowly eroding her spirit, isolating her from the Force, but she doesn’t care. Without the Force, she doesn’t have to be on her guard, anxious that each shiver, each prickle of her skin is a sign that he’s there, hiding in the shadowy recesses of her mind, watching her. She’s safe from him. That’s a relief also.

 

#

 

Like every reprieve Rey has ever known, it’s tenuous. The Force keeps pushing, and the only way to escape is to be so worn down that the days start blurring together, rubbing her raw with hard work, freezing temperatures and meager food.

 

She volunteers for the hardest tasks, tries to stay inside as little as possible, and the others take it for devotion to the cause. Poe, who has taken command of the group since Leia’s death, a few weeks into their desperate escape, is always keen to present her as an example, a model of resilience, his right-hand woman, asking her opinion first every time a decision must be taken.

 

If only he knew. If only they all knew. It almost makes her want to laugh, though it has been so long since she’s felt any real joy that she thinks she might have forgotten what it feels like. When Rose recovered from her injuries and freed the sick bed, she actually thanked Rey for making space for her in the tiny space where she slept.

 

“I don’t like sleeping by myself,” Rose told her with disarming sincerity. “When I was younger, I always found it comforting to hear my sister breathing next to me when I woke up during the night.”

 

Rey had to clench her mouth shut to keep from telling her that she was the one doing her a favor. When she was alone – completely alone, in the silence of the early morning hours – that’s when the veil was the thinnest, when she could feel his presence even when she couldn’t see him.

 

She had, once, not long after leaving Crait. She’d woken up to find Kylo Ren’s form looming over her, so close she could have reached out and grazed his cheek with her fingertips. Drowsiness had mollified her reason, and they had looked at each other for a few moments. But where the last remnants of sleep had peeled away, a strange tug in the center of her body had heightened her senses to a panic, and she’d scrambled up from the cot, shutting him out.

 

Later, Rey had circled back to it and the realization that she had craved, if only for a moment, the sensation of Kylo’s body weighing down on hers filled her with dread.

 

Maybe, she thinks now, it’s sheer loneliness that’s playing tricks on her mind, making her go down these sinuous paths. They’re all crammed together on the Falcon when the night falls and the ferocious winds start clawing at the plain, yet Rey struggles to find any solace in the presence of her friends. Certainly, the closeness is wearing on them – how could it not, in such circumstances? But Rey feels it’s another kind of connection she’s missing.

 

Like Finn and Rose - Rose and Finn, always linked by an invisible thread, even when they’re apart. They never kiss or even hold hands, but there are shared glances, words spoken in a softer tone, a thousand tiny gestures that show better than any overt display of affection that they belong to each other.

  
Rey wondered at first if she was jealous. After all, Finn is her first friend – her best friend, ready to die for her like she would for him. But in fact, she is envious of them, so envious it becomes a physical sensation, like hunger or thirst. She has been sold as a slave, treated as little better than chattel, but she has never belonged to anyone that way.

 

#

 

Then, one day, they manage to rig the solar panels to the water system.

 

This means a hot shower for each one them once a week, an unimaginable luxury, and it becomes a celebratory occasion, a telling sign of how far they've fallen. After they've slapped each others' backs and had a laugh and a drink, the question turns to who will go first.

  
The men gallantly relinquish their spot until later, and the women all agree it should be Rey. She's mortified by this honor: it's one more proof of the quiet deference they've started showing towards her since Leia died, as if she had been unknowingly established as the legitimate Skywalker heir.

  
But she's not their heir. She's nobody. _Not to me._

  
She flicks the memory away, wishing she could definitely crush it like you would a parasite between your thumb and your forefinger, but the brain for all its wonders holds no such power. She accepts, if only to numb her thoughts.

  
T he shower has the opposite effect. When the gloriously hot water runs down her limbs, she feels her muscles relaxing for the first time in weeks. Her body is no longer a machine to be sparsely fed and rested, but an organism alive with sensation. Water always feels miraculous on the parched skin of a child of Jakku, and Rey closes her eyes, grinning, brimming with energy, herself again.  
  
"I knew you couldn't keep away forever," a deep voice rumbles next to her ear.

  
Her eyes shoot open. The air rushes out of her lungs. She slams the button to stop the flow of water and turns around. The space is empty, but she's certain he was there.

  
One moment of respite was all it took. Kylo has been biding his time, waiting for her to cave in to the Force. For all his destructive fury, he knows how to be patient when he's so inclined.

 

#

 

Over the next few days, there is even more reason to hope. The communications system is working again and they’ve received signals – faint and far off, not much more than a series of beeps from another hideout somewhere in the galaxy, but not accidental. Someone has intercepted their encrypted message and is reaching out to them.

 

This is enough for plans to kick into gear. What fuel do they have left? What about supplies? Should they make Lah’mu the new base of the Resistance, despite the harsh climate? Who else might head their call?

 

“We need to let them know we have someone with us who’s strong with the Force,” says Finn. “Luke Skywalker’s own disciple, who bested Snoke in combat. What could galvanize them more than that?”

 

Rey knows Finn is only trying to be kind, to show her that he trusts and admires her. And he’s right, they need to give it their all if they want to turn this coal lump of a planet into a beacon for those who still want to fight. She can’t tell him, or any of them, that as miserable and isolated as this place is, a part of her is just fine with the idea of burrowing in a hiding place and being slowly forgotten by the rest of the galaxy.

 

And so Rey starts training again, with all the focus and concentration she has been taught. One by one, she opens the locks of her mind, knowing that when the last one will fall, there will be nothing to stop Kylo from coming to her.

  
#

 

Rey can tell he's there before she even enters the shower stall.

 

She can’t see him yet, but the back of her neck prickles with awareness, as if he’s staring at her from the very edge of her field of vision. She could get dressed, leave, shout out for someone, postpone the inevitable. Or she could simply ignore him, show him that she doesn’t care, and that hounding her all across space and time will never change that.

 

She undresses and turns on the shower as if nothing is amiss. The water is boiling hot, yet she feels a disconcerting breeze on her back: the air of another planet, fresher and cleaner. Kylo is standing right behind her now, but still she says nothing.

 

“It’s cruel of you to make me wait this way.”

 

He’s expecting her to turn around. She stubbornly scrubs at her arms and legs before rinsing herself, and he watches her in silence. Rey expects a wave of burning shame from being naked in front of him, but it never comes – only an acute impression of herself that strangely thrills her.

 

“Will you let me stay this time?” he asks, stepping closer.

 

She presses the button and turns the water off, but her body remains frozen in place. Is it him using the Force, or her, so drawn to him still that she can’t bring herself to move? She glares at the metallic door of the stall, willing it to open, to no avail; it’s like swimming against a tide.

 

"That's all right," he says, and his tone is almost cajoling, amused even, as if he's merely playing along to humor her. "You don't have to look at me if you don't want to."

  
_Just as long as you let me touch you_ , is what he implies. He hovers over her, and every nerve ending on her skin crackles with electricity. She can’t hold back the energy that thrums within her, no more than she can stifle the sensations that Kylo elicits when he’s near.

 

“Why don’t you close your eyes?” he murmurs. “That would make it easier.”

 

“I don’t want it to be easy,” she replies in a strangled voice.

 

“Good. I wouldn’t enjoy it as much if I didn’t know you were fighting it.”

 

Rey bites her lip so hard she thinks she might draw blood. She _is_ fighting it – fighting their bond, fighting the Force, holding her hands up against the current of a raging river as if it could act as a dam. She wonders if that’s what makes him come back to her: the fact that no matter the odds, she will never put her hands down and let the current take her. Deep inside, she will never stop hoping.

 

He swipes her wet hair away from the nape of her neck and plants a kiss there. “I wish you could see the fire that emanates from you. The light. It guides me to you, always.”

 

She forces her breathing to remain calm, but it flutters in her ribcage like a caught bird. “Then why are you trying to extinguish it?”

 

“Is that what you think I’m doing?”

 

He laughs softly against her skin and a shiver runs along her spine. Then she feels his fingers trace a path down her right forearm and slowly circle her wrist. Her pulse accelerates. Kylo Ren is more frightening when he’s being gentle.

 

“It’s quite the opposite, in fact. I want to fan the flames, make them grown until they engulf you, like they engulf me.”

 

His hand covers hers and steers it towards the smooth plain of her stomach, then makes it descend inch by inch. When she realizes what he’s about to do, Rey gasps and tries to bolt, but he immediately wraps his other arm around her chest, locking her against him with an iron grip. She can feel his body now; his torso is bare but he’s wearing trousers. He would be too vulnerable without them, and he likes to have an advantage over her any way he can.

 

Yet even he can’t control his rapid heartbeat, or his ragged breath, and his trousers do nothing to conceal his desire for her. Kylo is slave to the same weakness as any man. Rey arches against him with ruthless intent and a groan escapes his throat. He responds by sliding her hand down, more forcefully this time, until both their fingers are cupping her mound. She twists her hand to pull it away but he clasps it in place, creating friction on the fold where she feels at once a flushed swell and an aching emptiness.

 

“Don’t,” Kylo commands. “I want to picture you doing this – thinking of me.”

 

Rey grits her teeth. Her mind is revolted by his words but her body is throbbing, expanding, starved for more. She struggles so that he will tighten his hold on her, increase the friction, squeeze every last drop of this odious lust out of her.

 

“You see, I would destroy this entire galaxy until we’re the only ones left,” he growls. “I don’t want anyone else but you.”

 

He starts to move her hand, then stays it so it alternates maddeningly between swift movements and slow, drawn-out strokes. Rey refuses to whimper and plead, but she knows Kylo will obtain something of her before they’re done.

 

“Tell me. Tell me there’s no one else you want either.”

 

“No one,” she concedes so that he’ll go on – just a few moments more – just a little harder.

 

“Say that you want me,” he insists, and for an instant he’s the one who’s pleading.

 

Rey throws her head back, overcome by the pressure that sends jolts of raw sensation through her body. “I want you,” she breathes, slamming her eyes shut and finding them blurry with tears when she opens them again, not because it is humiliating, but because it is true.

 

This seems to satiate him, and he finally releases her hand to finish by himself. Kylo is dexterous and thorough, but rough, and when his fingers enter her, the red-hot coils that have been tightening within her unwind erratically. He places his other hand on her mouth to capture her moans, so that only he can hear them.

 

When the wave has washed over her, Rey slumps against him, defeated. He bends over to lay his head in the crook of her neck.

 

“Rey...”

 

The sound of her name is like a brutal awakening. She can withstand humiliation and debasement and her own treacherous body handing her over to the enemy, but not that. Not her name, whispered in a tone that speaks of something they’ll never have.

 

She finally finds the strength to push him away and turn around. Her heart nearly breaks at the sight of him: a man of breathtaking stature, but a lost boy nonetheless, constantly walking the line between arrogance and anguish. Be that as it may, she is in no mood to be kind.

 

“There’s no one else but you, Ben, and never will be,” she says softly, locking her eyes with his so there can be no doubt that she means what she says.

 

Kylo enjoys the fight right up until he receives a blow. His expression is singed with savage pain, and Rey turns to dry herself, sensing him retreat like a wounded animal and fade into the ether.

 

It’s a meaner sort of satisfaction, a cold sort of comfort, but like him, she’ll take what she can.


End file.
